During the last decade there have been so many innovations in the world of technology. Self-driving cars, smartphones, space exploration, bio printing, internet of things. The list goes on and on. We are definitely undergoing a technological revolution. Among those was the recent deployment of a series of AI-powered chatbots that have opened new frontiers for the generation of images, videos, 2D, 3D models, text, code as well as art such as music and movies. The way we access and generate content has taken a major shift as we are finally seeing the first truly sophisticated results of years of AI development.
However, innovation has a cost and the fact that we have access to these new tools permits intelligent people to make decisions which will protect as well as aggressive people to make decisions which will destroy. Subsequently, the world of computer science and the world of politics are finally having a face to face discussion as experts around the world are dividing opinions on what kind of future we should expect. Many want us to be excited. Many want us to be concerned. And both sides have solid arguments.
David Ruess and Hiranya Ganatra are two urban planners who wanted to explore this conundrum and to see what this all means for the way we design, plan and run our cities. Are we looking at a future in which there’s going to be an AI consultant in every meeting politicians have about the state of public urban infrastructure? Is urban design going to be transformed from a creative and investigative practice to a curatorial one?
Really, there are no ways to give a general answer to these questions. As we know very well, context, culture and environment are still able to define the role of technology in societies and cities. With this in mind, it is still an important moment to reflect, pause and think about the kind of future we want to design.
